Informative Actions on Open Data for Young People in Secondary and Higher Education (GR0049)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Greece National Action Plan 2016-2018
Action Plan Cycle: 2016
Status: Inactive
Institutions
Lead Institution: Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs
Support Institution(s): Public Administration Students Teachers
Policy Areas
Access to Information, Education, Open Data, Public Service DeliveryIRM Review
IRM Report: Greece Mid-Term Report 2016-2018, Greece End-of-Term Report 2016-2018
Starred: No
Early Results: Did Not Change
Design i
Verifiable: No
Relevant to OGP Values: Access to Information
Implementation i
Description
Context The Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs has a powerful channel of communication with the wide public and most importantly with young people (ie future citizens) through the Secondary and Higher Education Institutions, which supervises. At this point of time, the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious, although occasionally makes a number of informative actions, it is unfortunately not taking any action towards informing young people about open data and the advantages of their reusability. Commitment Description As part of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs to inform young people about the usability of open data, respective actions/projects can be organized in Secondary and Higher Education. OGP Values Participation Implementing bodies Implementation: Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs Contact Points: General Director of the Directorate of Strategic Planning and Design of Electronic Governance Kalomira Marouga.Telephone +30 2103442012. Email t11kalma@minedu.gov.gr Involved entities: Public Administration Students Teachers Objective The interventions proposed through actions/projects aim at making citizens aware of the open data and their reusability benefits, focusing mainly on young people, using as information channel Schools and Universities. Means for the implementation Actions / Projects
IRM End of Term Status Summary
Commitment 17, 18, 19 and 20: Commitments on Education
Commitment 17: Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
Provision for friendly and handy interface that will allow citizens to access the information. Statistical information will be extended to as many years as possible. All the above will be integrated, with the use of modern electronic forms and the introduction of an electronic searching mechanism. This way, value-added data of high demand that are not currently available to the public, will become open and accessible to all citizens.
Commitment 18: Protocol Digitization
The Ministry aims to digitizing entirely the aforementioned service, so as citizens to be able to submit their application electronically. Moreover, Citizens will be also able to be informed electronically about the final result of their request, through electronic channels such as SMS or email, thus making the overall process more accessible and easier.
Commitment 19: Informative Actions on open data for young people in
Secondary and higher Education
As part of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs to inform young people about the usability of open data, respective actions/projects can be organized in Secondary and Higher Education. The interventions proposed through actions/projects aim at making citizens aware of the open data and their reusability benefits, focusing mainly on young people, using as information channel Schools and Universities.
Commitment 20: Open Education
Within the context of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs for open education, respective actions/projects are proposed: Create an inventory of available digital educational resources, so as to track down which of these could be provided with Creative Commons license; Create a platform, via which the educational resources in question will be available to the wide public to deploy. This platform will merge underlying systems; Suggest a new procurement process for school manuscripts and other educational resources at all levels of education, which will allow the publication of educational resources with Creative Commons License; Organize actions to inform students and teachers in all levels of education in open education issues.
Responsible institution: Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs
Supporting institution(s): None
Start date: July 2016 End date: December 2017
Editorial Note: All three commitments in this cluster have the same implementing agency and the same start and end dates. The action plan text has been abridged by the IRM. For the full version, please see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-national-action-plan-2016-2018/
Commitment Aim:
The commitments for education outlined in the third national action plan aim to provide educational information in a more accessible way. This includes the release of data for national exams and public institution resources, the digitalization of logging correspondence among public institutions and the establishment of open educational resources.
Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
Every year, young students and their families, as well as public and private educators, need to access various statistical information about the Panhellenic examinations. The Ministry of Education conducts these examinations to explain acceptance processes to Greek higher education institutions. The commitment aims to improve the historic records of examination data as well as making it easier for public access.
Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization
This commitment aims to improve the response of the Ministry of Education to incoming requests and applications, mainly from ministry employees and teachers. As a solution, the Ministry of Education proposes to fully digitize the relevant service for logging correspondence between the ministry and other entities. It also proposes to provide automated SMS and email updates for all incoming requests.
Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in
Secondary and higher Education
The open data agenda is a novel one for Greek society. Knowledge about open data is currently restricted to individual experts within the open government community. Such knowledge has not been diffused to the wider population, especially young people. The Ministry of Education committed to closing this gap by using its existing human network in public schools and in higher education institutions. This commitment aims to spread knowledge regarding the value, the benefits, and the uses of open data to pupils in high school as well as young students in higher education.
Commitment 20. Open Education
This commitment reflects a first attempt from the Ministry of Education to approach the issue of open education in Greece. Currently, the education community can hardly access educational resources and content produced with public money. Therefore, this commitment aims to produce a list of all digitally available educational resources on a new web-based platform. Also, the Ministry of Education will seek legal assistance to allow open licensing in the procurement of new educational content via Creative Commons.
Status
Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
Midterm: Limited
The goal of this commitment was to improve historic records of past exam data and make them easier to access. Teachers would have access to exam materials and good practices, while students and parents could be more informed on the popularity of certain courses.
End of term: Limited
The website offering exam topics[Note 163: Archive of university entry exams, http://www.minedu.gov.gr/anazitisi-archive/anazitisi-thematon-panelliniwn-eksetaseon (accessed in September 2018).] is not accessible online. Some statistical information on school exam performance was released in July 2018 but was limited and available only as a link within a press release on the Ministry’s website.[Note 164: Exam performance data for Greek schools, Ministry of Education (in Greek), https://www.minedu.gov.gr/news/35674-29-06-18-anakoinosi-statistikon-stoixeion-gia-tis-vathmologikes-epidoseis-gel-kai-epal-2019] Despite repeated efforts[Note 165: IRM researcher emails to the Ministry of Education General Secretary, 13 September 2018, with a follow-up on 21 September 2018 and a telephone call to the office of the General Secretary, 25 September 2018.] by the IRM researchers, the Ministry did not respond to any enquiries regarding commitment implementation. The same stands for all commitments in the third action plan by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs.
Did It Open Government?
Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
Access to Information: Did Not Change
The commitment has not changed government practice as the website offering exam topics is not available online and there is not enough evidence to justify whether the limited statistical information released by the Ministry was useful to the education community.
Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization
Midterm: Complete
The Ministry of Education lacked a comprehensive digital system to track incoming and outgoing mail and requests by citizens and other government departments. By the midterm evaluation the Ministry had completed the digitization of the registry dealing with such mail and requests. Citizens can use mydocs.minedu.gov.gr to electronically submit and track any requests or issues they have concerning the Ministry of Education.[Note 166: Online application management service for citizens website, Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs (in Greek), https://mydocs.minedu.gov.gr/]
End of term: Complete
No new actions apart from the ones stated in the midterm report could be discerned at the end-of-term assessment. Also, no usage statistics or user feedback relating to the existing platform were made publicly available by the Ministry of Education.[Note 167: Ibid.]
Did It Open Government?
Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization
Civic participation: Marginal
Although this commitment had no direct relevance to OGP values, its implementation resulted in a marginal improvement with respect to civic participation. In the past, citizens faced considerable difficulties in accessing information on their applications or other requests to the Ministry.[Note 168: Diakologitika, “Ministry of Education: The electronic applications for technical schools begin” (in Greek), https://www.dikaiologitika.gr/eidhseis/paideia/160905/ypourgeio-paideias-ksekinoyn-oi-ilektronikes-diloseis-protimisis-sta-epal] Despite initial problems in the operation of the system,[Note 169: Stefanos Cherouvis, Senior Researcher at the private school Ellinogermaniki Agogi for Greece, in “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, Open Government Partnership, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment] the platform now provides a more efficient way to communicate with the Ministry. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS)[Note 170: Despina Mitropoulou, General Director of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), telephone interview with IRM researcher, 12 September 2018.] suggests that, as a future step forward, the Ministry could openly provide statistical information on the system’s use that would allow for the redesign and streamlining of the most popular requests, utilizing the experience gathered by the diadikasies.gr initiative.[Note 171: See commitment 33. ]
Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in
Secondary and higher Education
Midterm: Not Started
The Ministry of Education aimed to close what it perceived as a gap in open data education and awareness. It would use its existing human network in public schools and in higher education institutions to inform students in high school and higher education about the value, benefits and uses of open data. However, the commitment text did not mention specific informational actions or a concrete timeframe. No actions had been taken towards the stated goal by the midterm evaluation.
End of term: Not Started
No actions have taken place in implementing the commitment following the midterm evaluation. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) were also not aware of any steps taken by the Ministry of Education to complete the commitment.[Note 172: Despina Mitropoulou, General Director of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), telephone interview with IRM researcher, 12 September 2018.]
Did It Open Government?
Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in
Secondary and higher Education
Access to Information: Did Not Change
The commitment did not start and, thus, there was no change in practice in providing students with awareness on open data practices and policies.
Commitment 20. Open Education
Midterm: Not Started
The Ministry aimed to create an inventory of available digital educational resources and examine which of these could be provided for reuse using the appropriate licenses (for example, Creative Commons). The Ministry of Education already maintains existing repositories for educational content provided by teachers that license all the content with Creative Commons licenses.[Note 173: Fotodendro, National Educational Content repository (in Greek), http://photodentro.edu.gr/aggregator/] This commitment tried to expand this considerably by changing the procurement process for education materials[Note 174: Law 3966/2011 – Institutional Framework of the Model Experimental Schools, Establishment of the Institute for Educational Policy, Organization of the Institute of Computer Technology and Publications "DIOFANTOS" and Other Provisions (in Greek), https://www.kodiko.gr/nomologia/document_navigation/125088/nomos-3966-2011] to allow for open availability of manuscripts and other educational resources for all levels of education.
There was no evidence to indicate that this commitment had started by the midterm review. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) noted that the commitment was withdrawn by the Ministry of Education.[Note 175: Dr. Prodromos Tsiavos, Member of the Board of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), interview with IRM researchers, Athens, 13 October 2018.] For more details see the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece.[Note 176: OGP, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment]
End of term: Not Started
There is no evidence that the implementation of this commitment started following the midterm review. Dr. George Papanikolaou, a member of the Greek chapter of the P2P Foundation pointed out[Note 177: Dr. Giorgos Papanikolaou, Lecturer at Harokopio University of Athens, Fellow at P2P Foundation Greece, telephone interview with IRM researchers, 9 September 2018.] that a new Open Educational Resource (OER) repository has been created as part of an EU-funded project, carried out by Greek Universities and University Libraries, the "Kallipos" Repository.[Note 178: Project Kallipos, the first comprehensive effort to introduce electronic interactive, multimedia textbooks in Higher Education (in Greek), https://www.kallipos.gr/en/] Although this initiative is a relevant step forward in opening data in the education field, it is unrelated to the implementation of this commitment and therefore has no impact on the completion level.
Did It Open Government?
Commitment 20. Open Education
Access to Information: Did Not Change
The commitment did not start and as a result had no influence in changing the status quo.
Carried Forward?
The next action plan is not available at the time of writing this report. Part of the mandate of the Ministry of Education, namely the life-long development of skills, has now been transferred to the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, under the same directorate that is responsible for Open Government.[Note 179: Ministry of Administrative Reform press release, “We are implementing the National Digital Skills Plan for the benefit of the citizen” (in Greek), http://www.minadmin.gov.gr/?p=27454] If the government were to prioritize open education, the IRM researchers suggest bringing together and building on the experiences from the Ministry of Education and the EU-funded project, to co-create a new commitment.
Commitments
-
Open Education Data
GR0065, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Rural Development Data
GR0066, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Immigration Data
GR0067, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open National Defense Data
GR0068, 2019, Access to Information
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Open Ministry of Interior Data
GR0069, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Administrative Reconstruction Data
GR0070, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Economic Data
GR0071, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Local Government Data
GR0072, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Justice Data
GR0073, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Environmental Data
GR0074, 2019, Access to Information
-
Open Culture and Sports Data
GR0075, 2019, Access to Information
-
Sports whistleblower platform
GR0076, 2019, Anti-Corruption
-
Open data from Ministry of Culture & Sports
GR0077, 2019, Access to Information
-
Publish anonymized open agricultural data
GR0078, 2019, Access to Information
-
Promoting open agricultural data to interested stakeholders
GR0079, 2019, E-Government
-
Citizen participation for update of Digital Transformation Bible
GR0080, 2019, E-Government
-
Monitoring platform for action plan
GR0081, 2019, E-Government
-
Amend EETT regulation
GR0082, 2019, Access to Information
-
Framework Law on Open & Participative Governance
GR0031, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Participation in the Assessment of the Public Sector
GR0032, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Publicity of Organisational Charts & Entities of the Public Sector
GR0033, 2016, E-Government
-
Accountability and Settlement of Disputes Between the Citizens and the Public Sector
GR0034, 2016, Legislation & Regulation
-
Guide and Standardization for the Provision of Services & for Procedures Per Service/Entity
GR0035, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Improvement of the Open Deliberation Procedure
GR0036, 2016, Capacity Building
-
National Register of Line Managers of the Public Administration (Register)
GR0037, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Implementation of the Assessment of Employees and Services and Control Methods
GR0038, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Implementation of a System for the Selection of Managers
GR0039, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Digital Repository for Pubic Administration Studies
GR0040, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Provision of Open Cultural Data
GR0041, 2016, Access to Information
-
Geospatial Maritime Data
GR0042, 2016, Access to Information
-
Ship/Company and Seafarer Registers
GR0043, 2016, Access to Information
-
Marine and Maritime Activity
GR0044, 2016, Access to Information
-
Public Property Open Data
GR0045, 2016, Access to Information
-
KPI’s for the Implementation of Public and EU Financed Projects
GR0046, 2016, E-Government
-
Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams
GR0047, 2016, E-Government
-
Protocol Digitization
GR0048, 2016, E-Government
-
Informative Actions on Open Data for Young People in Secondary and Higher Education
GR0049, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open Education
GR0050, 2016, Access to Information
-
Provision of Open Data for Justice
GR0051, 2016, Access to Information
-
Enhanced Statistical Data of Justice Open to the Public
GR0052, 2016, E-Government
-
Open Provision of Geo-Data
GR0053, 2016, Access to Information
-
Open-Participatory Budget
GR0054, 2016, Access to Information
-
Regional Council Platform (Open Regional Council)
GR0055, 2016, E-Government
-
Open - Participatory Budget
GR0056, 2016, E-Government
-
Capture and Evaluation Platform for Regional Technical Projects
GR0057, 2016, E-Government
-
City Dashboard
GR0058, 2016, Access to Information
-
Online Consultation Platform
GR0059, 2016, E-Government
-
Open Data Index for Cities and Local Administrations
GR0060, 2016, Access to Information
-
Linked, Open and Participatory Budgets
GR0061, 2016, E-Government
-
School of Data for Public Servants
GR0062, 2016, Access to Information
-
The Collaborative Wikification of Public Services Procedures
GR0063, 2016, Capacity Building
-
Strengthening Openness and Accessibility of the Parliament
GR0064, 2016, Access to Information
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Institutional and Technological Upgrading of Transparency Program
GR0012, 2014, Access to Information
-
Public Participation in Decision Making
GR0013, 2014, Capacity Building
-
Integration of PSI Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information
GR0014, 2014, Access to Information
-
Regulatory Amendments for the Management and Provision of Open Data
GR0015, 2014, Access to Information
-
Implementation of Platform for Central Distribution of Public Open Data
GR0016, 2014, Access to Information
-
Provision of Open Geospatial Data
GR0017, 2014, Access to Information
-
Provision of Open Cultural Data
GR0018, 2014, Access to Information
-
Provision of Open Data for Offshore Companies
GR0019, 2014, Access to Information
-
Open Provision of Public Sector Critical Data Sets
GR0020, 2014, Access to Information
-
Open Invitations for Filling Posts in the Public Sector
GR0021, 2014, E-Government
-
Public Administration Organizational Chart Publication
GR0022, 2014, Capacity Building
-
Coordination and Monitoring of Open Government Policy
GR0023, 2014, Anti-Corruption
-
Reorganization of Inspectorate Bodies and Strategic Alliance Development Against Corruption
GR0024, 2014, Anti-Corruption
-
Tracking Changes on Bills (From Submission to Voting by Plenum)
GR0025, 2014, E-Government
-
Usability and Functionality Improvements of the ‘Parliamentary Transparency’ Section of the Hellenic Parliament Website
GR0026, 2014, E-Government
-
Improvement of the Hellenic Parliament Website and Implementation of New Standards-Technologies
GR0027, 2014, Access to Information
-
Provision of Historical Parliamentary Documents to the Public
GR0028, 2014, E-Government
-
Enhancement of Social Media Policy in the Hellenic Parliament
GR0029, 2014, E-Government
-
On Line Provision of Exhibitions
GR0030, 2014, Capacity Building
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Increase Number of Legislative Acts Going Through Online Deliberation
GR0001, 2012, Legislation & Regulation
-
Capitalize on Citizen Comments and Suggestions
GR0002, 2012, Public Participation
-
Operate Central e-Procurement Information System
GR0003, 2012, Anti-Corruption
-
Operate Central ERP Information System
GR0004, 2012, E-Government
-
Operate Central HRMS Information System
GR0005, 2012, E-Government
-
Open Data Regarding Prices, as Collected by Prices Observatory
GR0006, 2012, Access to Information
-
Resolve Legal Issues Regarding State Geo-Data
GR0007, 2012, Land Rights & Spatial Planning
-
Offer Additional Taxation Data
GR0008, 2012, Fiscal Openness
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Augment Functionality of the Transparency Program
GR0009, 2012, E-Government
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Publicise Public Sector Procurement Information
GR0010, 2012, Anti-Corruption
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Enable Open, Transparent and Safeguarded Document Circulation
GR0011, 2012, E-Government